Urbanisation
Murcia ยท Mar Menor
La Manga del Mar Menor
A developed sandbar between the Mediterranean and the Mar Menor, shared by two councils and inseparable from the lagoon's environmental crisis.
One strip, two seas and two councils
A sandbar which became a planned coastal settlement
La Manga is a narrow sandy barrier with open Mediterranean water on one side and the shallow Mar Menor lagoon on the other. Large-scale development from the 1960s placed one long urbanisation over that natural structure.
It is not a municipality. Cartagena administers the southern section and San Javier the northern section, while the lagoon itself reaches four municipal shores and now has legal personhood under Spanish law.
La Manga is a planned strip shared between Cartagena and San Javier, so it has no separate municipal register or INE population row.
Read La Manga
One new contribution
New contribution ยท Summer 2026
La Manga and the Mar Menor: a sandbar between two seas
How a natural barrier became a two-council urbanisation and why nutrient pollution, lagoon monitoring and legal personhood now define its future.
Published 1 September 2026
Read the guide